


Synthetic Sisterhood

by lightsaberlesbian



Category: Humans (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-16 19:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10578258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightsaberlesbian/pseuds/lightsaberlesbian
Summary: As Niska turns 20 Mia reflects on her little sister’s journey through life.A speculation on Niska's "childhood", what it was like to live with the Elsters, Mia's and Niska's relationship and what the future holds for them. Set a little over 10 years after where Humans begin.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This contains some vague references to incest and sexual abuse, but nothing graphic.
> 
> If anyone comes up with a better title to this, feel free to share it with me!

Mia remembers the night Niska was born very vividly, like a scene from a movie saved on her hard drive, just like she remembers her own birth, the birth of her brothers or any other experience she’s ever had. It isn’t often she thinks back on those moments where their lives began, but she does today as her plane gains altitude and leaves Heathrow Airport behind, as the autumn rain hammers against the windows the same way it had the night she met her little sister for the first time.

 

 

 

At precisely 8:32 pm Mia had been called into her father’s study to get a first look at her little sister. Leo and Fred had been instructed to wait in the room next door in order not to overwhelm their new family member as she arrived. Being the oldest sibling and the mother figure of the Elster family came with the duty of introducing new siblings to the world and the responsibility of seeing to it that they entered it with the most ease possible. She had done the same when Fred was born and would do it again at the birth of Max a couple of years later.

She had been sitting behind David’s mahogany desk when Mia had entered the room, with her back straight, chin against her chest and hands neatly placed in her lap, the standard position for a switched off synthetic. The little signal that the Elsters rarely heard but was familiar to any other household with a synth was played somewhere inside of her as David had switched her on. Her head had tilted up and she had opened her eyes to reveal the same eye color that two out of the other three Elster siblings had in common. An electric green color signifying the bond to their father, making them a family. A golden platinum fringe framed her face shaped like a diamond with prominent cheekbones, a cute nose and pink little mouth. Once again, their father had done an exceptional job.

“Hello, David. How can I be of assistance?” She had greeted them.

Without answering, David had turned to Mia with a proud smile. “What do you think?”

“She’s very beautiful. Does she have a name?”

“My name is Niska,” the synth had responded for herself.

With the push of a few buttons on his laptop, David had let the code enter his new daughter’s system. The little signal had gone off again and her facial expression had changed immediately from an indifferent almost-smile to furrowed brows and slightly parted lips as she had thrown a cautious look around the room.

“Hello, Niska,” David had said. “Do you recognize me?”

“David Elster, my primary user. I believe I’m experiencing a serious malfunction.” 

“I am your father. This is your sister, her name is Mia. And you’re not malfunctioning, you’re alive.” 

After his explanation of what it means to be alive and being a part of the Elster family, Niska turned out to be a curious one. From the moment she was born and on she was always asking her father and older siblings about the world and how it worked and when they didn’t know or found something difficult to explain she turned to the enormous library in the heart of the mansion. She would spend eternities there, reading anything and everything she could get her hands on, from philosophy to fairytales to medicine to poetry, absorbing all the knowledge like a sponge then discussed it with her family for hours on end. She had been different from Mia whose first love had been the outdoors, the greens of the forest around them and the blue of the sky above, the warmth of the sun on her skin and the breeze coming in from the lake.

The sisters were very different already from the start not only appearance-wise but when Niska read or wrote, Mia drew or painted. Mia loved hiking, Niska preferred climbing trees and discovering the world from above. Mia didn’t care much for the meaning of life but Niska wanted to know everything. Despite their differences, the two sisters got along more than well and being unable to leave the mansion and meet other people meant that all of the Elster siblings grew tight bonds between one another. Something they all had in common was their enthusiasm for sports and Niska was particularly good at tennis, which also happened to be Mia’s forte. Their favorite thing to do was to team up with each other and play against their brothers; always winning, they made an indestructible team.

So Niska had been a curious, lively girl with an infectious smile to begin with. But around the time Beatrice was getting worse something happened or began to happen. Niska changed. The first thing Mia noticed was her showering, an unusual habit for someone who doesn’t perspire and a potentially dangerous one for a synthetic as it could lead to lasting damage, but Niska would take up to two and sometimes even three showers a day. In the beginning, she made up excuses, like saying she fell into some mud or spilled something all over herself, but that soon faded into a small shrug and a mumble about just feeling dirty, filthy, unclean. As time went by she kept getting increasingly careless about herself. She continued to shower, took walks in the rain during the stormiest of nights and often they even had to remind her to charge, then tell her to unplug herself from the charger so her battery wouldn’t overheat.

She began to distance herself from Mia and the others. More and more time she would spend in the fictional worlds her books provided, always by herself in either the library or hiding somewhere inside the mansion. Less and less time she spent with her siblings; whenever they were around she either read or observed them from afar, no longer participating in their games or conversations. They practically had to drag her by her limbs to family dinners with their father where what used to be an endless chatter had turned monosyllabic and she rarely spoke unless spoken to. For a while, for a few weeks (or was it months?) she refused to speak at all.

Although none of the siblings were particularly close to their father’s wife, she had been family. Beatrice’s condition, and eventually the death of her and Leo, had affected them all and Mia had supposed that Niska was particularly sensitive because she was younger, but her distant behavior continued long after Leo was brought back to life.

The arrival of Max made her return to them for at least a little while. He was just as curious as she had been and Niska tried to teach him all she knew. His innocence seemed to bring her a sense of calm but the more independent he got, the more she withdrew herself again.

Niska swore she was fine when asked how she was doing and got angry when her siblings insisted they knew she wasn’t, snapping at them that it was none of their business and that they should leave her alone. And they did most of the time and eventually, they stopped asking. They figured their father had realized his daughter was in some kind of pain, that that was the reason he called her into his study so often, that he was talking to her, trying to make her better. But they were wrong, Mia knows that now.

Then he had burned himself to death along with the family home, leading the siblings to roam aimlessly through the woods for weeks. It was the toughest time of their life at the time but it had brought them together as a family, Niska included, when they had to work as a team to find shelter, electricity and food for Leo. They hadn’t been sure where they were going, but they had been together and that was all that mattered at the time.

But of course, that sense of togetherness didn’t last long for any of them. They were separated, Mia became Anita and Niska became… She doesn’t even want to think about it. Anyone’s worst nightmare was Niska’s reality for five weeks. Another nightmare, she should say, right after the first one her sister had endured for years just ended. How Niska kept her hope up and remained sane after all of that Mia will never understand but forever be grateful and thank God if there is one.

Then everything with the Hawkins family happened, Hobb and not-Beatrice, Max’s accident which lead to the reconstruction of their father’s code with the ability to give consciousness to synthetics. Mia remembers how merciless the word felt when she thought they had lost Fred to Hobb and only minutes later she thought she had lost Niska for good as well.

“I want to live my own life now,” she had said. 

The selfish part of Mia had wanted to forbid her sister from leaving, force her to stay so they could remain a family, but already then something in her had realized that that was exactly what was keeping her sister from being happy and that leaving was something that Niska had wanted to do for a long time. So she had let her go, released the young bird from its cage to soar freely through the skies, believing that they would never see each other again. Still, she had thought of her sister every day, hoping she was safe and happy wherever her wings had brought her. Hoping that she wasn’t alone, that she had someone to talk to after her years of silence and solitude, that she was allowed to discover just how beautiful life can be.

They saw each other again months later when Niska and Mattie Hawkins brought Mia back to life and as a result changed the whole world forever. The Elsters very slowly but surely worked on repairing their relationship during the years that followed, when they once again had to work together to survive and fight to have their existence as well as the ones of the millions of new conscious synthetics recognized by governments worldwide and Niska had been more than ready to fight at the frontline.

 “Someone has to do it, why not me?” she had asked. “I already have the spotlight on me, why not put it to good use?”

It had been true, she had been wanted in all of Europe for the murder of a john at the synth brothel she had been kept in so the eyes of the media had been heavily focused on her. So she spoke to them, participated in interviews, published essays and debated with politicians. It inspired not only Mia, but all of the Elsters had marveled at Niska’s strength, passion, and persistence. Determined not to lose their sister one more time they all fought to have her freed of all charges regarding the killing, supported thoroughly by the Hawkinses (Laura and the kids, anyway), along with parts of the public. It started a movement, a global debate between “transhumanists” who acknowledged the existence of conscious synthetics and their right to live as free individuals in society with rights equal to “biohumans”, and their opposition calling themselves believers of the “real human”. Parliamentary parties and governments all over the world took stand in the matter and protests were held by youth wings and activists both for and against not only synth rights but also for the freeing of Niska. 

During the whole process, which took over a year, none of them had been allowed to leave the country, or even the town of Folkstone. Friends from Germany came over to show their support and solidarity with Niska and the conscious synthetics and among those friends, there had been Astrid: an energetic, extroverted, uninhibited sweet girl in her twenties. A young and lively Berliner with an infectious laugh and a sense of humor relieving some of the tension around the whole situation and had a particularly calming effect on Mia’s little sister. In many ways Astrid was a complete contrast to Niska; she was loud and outgoing whereas Niska was reserved, but somehow the two of them had connected, found comfort in one another and fallen in love. Niska had been shy about their relationship at first, but as Mia had reassured her that the only thing in the world that mattered to her was that the little spark of life and joy shone in her sister’s eyes she eased up and began to bring her along wherever she went, always giddy and giggly in her girlfriend’s company like a teenage girl around her first crush. Which she technically kind of was back then.

Although Mia’s reassurance that Niska’s health and happiness was very important to her convinced Niska that her sister could be trusted again, that she did care, it had still taken her quite some more time to find the courage to sit Mia down, beg her not to hate her and then tell her deepest and darkest secret: the story of why she had distanced herself from the family during all of those years, the reason behind her showering and why the feeling of dirtiness and shame wouldn’t leave her skin, the real reason why she had killed that man in the brothel and the reason she still jumped if someone touched her without her seeing who was doing it. Mia’s heart broke when she told her and it still breaks every time she is reminded of what their father made her little sister suffer through for so many years. Just the thought of it makes her sick and she is furious to the point that she detests him, but she is angrier with herself for not making her sister feel like she could have told her this before. She knows she will spend the rest of her life making up for that.

In the end, to the disappointment of many but the great joy of the majority, they won Niska’s case; she was declared innocent and it was stated that she had acted in self-defense as any other human being would have done in her situation. And although most people over time have stopped talking about Case Niska and the Elsters, the questions and arguments they raised will most likely last for many years more. Centuries, perhaps, or even forever.

 

 

 

 

It’s been a decade since all of that when Mia finds herself on an airplane, reflecting over her little sister’s life which began twenty years ago to the day. There is no rain when they land at Brandenburg Airport; the air is chilly but the sun is out against a close to clear sky as she gets off the plane. Originally, the idea had been for the family to gather and celebrate in England but the plan had to be changed for them all to travel to Germany instead since Astrid doesn’t fly these days. 

Berlin is where one goes to visit Niska now, that is where she lives. Like a migratory bird, Mia’s sister found a new life in the south, became a lawyer focused on synth rights and victims of sexual abuse, bought a one-bedroom flat to share with the same woman who convinced her of the beauty in life years ago and settled down. Mia currently resides in London where she works part-time as a pre-school teacher and studies art history in the remaining time. The sisters speak on the phone and on social media regularly, but it’s been months since they last saw one another face to face, months that feels like a lifetime to Mia as she grabs her luggage and heads for the exit. Finally, they are going to be reunited. 

They’re both glowing when she spots them; Astrid radiates with maternity as she rests a hand on her rounded stomach and Niska with pride as she stands beside her girlfriend, holding her other hand. She looks so grown up in a white button-down, knee-length pencil skirt and matching navy blue blazer. Her baby sister who is, in fact, is all grown up with an adult mind and life to finally match the age her body conveys. A key part of Mia’s family, about to have her own family. 

It doesn’t take long for Niska to see her older sister in the crowd of tourists and wave her over, she waves back and Niska smiles wide with her teeth. Mia hugs Astrid first, or tries to at least, her belly is so swollen it is difficult to reach around her, and they exchange a couple of compliments. Then finally she gets to wrap her arms around her sister and holds her so tight Niska laughs and jokes about not being able to breathe. But Mia holds on for dear life onto this tiny little life she loves beyond words, this life she was told to protect and raise, this life she will never let down again. Little Nissy, her sister who carried the weight of the universe on her narrow shoulders for so long they were on the verge of breaking but now has found someone to relieve her of her burdens. Eventually, she loosens her grip and cups her sister’s rosy cheeks and leans their foreheads together. Being only 5’3” Niska is usually the shorter one, but the heels she most likely wore to work brings her to perfect eye level. Her golden platinum hair is put up into a neat ponytail, but the fringe still frames the electric green eyes looking straight into Mia’s.

“Happy birthday, little sister. It’s good to see you.”


End file.
